An odd sort of company
by Dynamite3539
Summary: Elizabeth and Philip blow up a building. Nothing deep, sorry :P
1. Chapter 1

**Author Note: This probably isn't a real fan-fiction, because I'm not an avid watcher of shows who knows all the important details and character relationships - I enjoyed The Americans but I can't say I really understood all the storylines. Nevertheless, I've been thinking about writing this particular story for a while, for some pair of anti-American agents, and thought that Elizabeth and Philip would be nice characters to do it with. I also don't know anything about Washington (I've never even been to America :P) so the street names and the companies are all made up.**

Elizabeth received only very short notice of their latest assignment.

"The Americans have been copying and storing Soviet documents and photographs for years," the handler said. "Anything they can get their hands on. The majority of it is unimportant, but if they figure out how to use the rest the entire north-eastern network would be compromised."

It was raining outside, water streaming down the windows of the car.

"We have been watching a company called the Amondsen Telephone Company," the handler continued, "based here in Washington."

"Never heard of it," said Elizabeth.

"That's because it doesn't exist. The company headquarters," the handler carried on in one breath as if she were disclosing information as trivial and inconsequential as the weather on the other side of the country, "is located on Ramsey Street in the west end. The ground floor is taken up by a museum of sorts, a self-guided display covering the elaborate and fictional history of Gregory Amondsen and his enterprise," she said the word with a barely disguised expression of distaste, "and this is where you will be concentrating your efforts for the foreseeable future. I have arranged a visit for you through your company – you will be discussing the possibility of opening a contract for telephone services to your offices. Arrive half an hour earlier than the appointed time. Say you had to take the early bus. You are to become thoroughly acquainted with the layout of the museum and security measures in and around the building."

"Why is that?" asked Elizabeth, who was not used to taking such direct and detailed orders. Moscow must be very worried.

"Because," said the handler without a hint of a smile, "you're going to blow it up."


	2. Chapter 2

The call came through to her desk the next day. She was to be meeting with a representative from Amondsen Telephone Company to discuss a contract for their offices nationwide, at half past one that afternoon. The meeting would take place at company headquarters, 56 Ramsey Street in the west end.

Elizabeth was impressed. Someone had obviously been busy.

Stepping off the 12.55 bus, Elizabeth surveyed the street of plain-looking buildings on Ramsey Street, and the odd gaggle of office workers making their way back to work from the cluster of shops and cafes at the far end of the street. It had been specified that Philip was not to be involved in this assignment until a later date, or if possible not at all, so that as few people knew the details as possible. A solitary representative from the company would have seemed more suitable for the meeting as well.

Number 56 was a slightly more modern-looking building. Pushing open the door and proceeding down the narrow corridor, Elizabeth was somewhat surprised to see the passageway open up into a vast, square chamber lined with boxy rooms and wall displays on all four sides. Although dimly lit, one would have agreed that excessive lighting was not expressly necessary, for when the sun shone it was able to enter into the hall through the glass-panelled wall which extended high up the far side above the rooms beneath. Beyond this wall was a courtyard, after which came a fence marking the boundary of the property.

From outside, Elizabeth had seen that the building had at least ten floors, but she could not see a stairwell, a lift or even an "Authorised Personnel Only" sign on a door.

A large square of floor was missing from the centre of the hall, allowing Elizabeth to see into the dim recesses of an underground car park. The square was bordered with chest-high glass panels topped with wooden railings, giving the ground floor museum the appearance of a loft extending round all four sides of a large building. A reasonably wide strip of light oak flooring remained between the rooms and displays on the outer edge of the square and the void in the middle of the hall. This led all the way around the room, and Elizabeth followed it as far as the reception desk, located in the far corner of the square opposite the entrance corridor. A spiral staircase led downwards into the car park from in front of the reception desk.

"Hello," said Elizabeth with a smile, to the bored-looking young woman stationed at the desk. "I'm Elizabeth Jennings, here to meet Mr. Kingsford at one thirty." She looked apologetic. "Sorry I'm a little early. I had to catch an early bus to make it on time."

The young woman checked a diary, which looked largely unused, and nodded. "Okay. You can look around while you wait. Mr. Kingsford will be down soon."


	3. Chapter 3

Mary had been chosen for her easy-going attitude and willingness to perform her job without asking too many questions. She had been with Amondsen since the museum opened two years ago, and in that time she had seen barely a hundred visitors. It meant she had gotten through a fair number of excellent novels though, and could even work on her own writing from time to time. The hours were short – for the museum was only open from 10 to 4 on weekdays – and the pay was good, so Mary could spend time with her young son and buy him nice things, and she was happy.

She got back into her current book as the woman Elizabeth took her time examining the boring displays on the walls.

Elizabeth wasn't examining the boring displays on the walls, although she did write down a sentence now and then in her book to make it look like she'd learned something if she were ever brought up on it.

She was looking with interest instead at the advanced CCTV surveillance system installed in the rooms – wires and boxes were visible here and there, as well as, of course, the cameras themselves. The technology was made by a company Elizabeth recognised – Glades Security. A small red light danced under each camera, for there was one in every room as well as mounted on the wall at each corner of the square. _Excessive measures for a bunch of wall displays and some old furniture, _Elizabeth thought to herself.

She had just made it into the room at the centre of the northern side, one of the four with heavy wooden doors, one in the centre of each wall, when the red light suddenly disappeared on the camera inside. Elizabeth looked sharply at her watch. It was 1:12. Slowly she made her way into the adjacent alcove, looking casually around. The light was off there too. So was the one at the next turn in the path.

Going back into the room with the door, Elizabeth took in the setting – what looked to be a bedroom from the 1930s, with a bed and desk, plus some description on the wall. A faint humming came from the far side of the room, which she saw to be a heating unit high up in the wall.

The lights were back on – 1:22. Off for exactly ten minutes.

The receptionist knocked on the door and opened it.

"Mr. Kingsford is here now. He'll see you in the meeting room next to the entrance."


	4. Chapter 4

Elizabeth listened to Mr. Kingsford with what she hoped was a composed, business-like countenance. She felt like yawning, but her years of training and observing had taught her how to keep alert. They negotiated, bartered and bordered on arguing several times but Mr. Kingsford seemed to be doing everything in his power to discourage Elizabeth from making any purchase for her company.

Elizabeth probably knew about capitalism more than most of the people in America, she had been taught so thoroughly, and this was certainly not the way a corporation made profits.

Eventually the meeting was closed, no deal having been brokered. The two parties shook hands and left on friendly terms.

Elizabeth signed out at the reception desk, making comment on how insightful and interesting the museum displays had been.

"Oh, you're just being polite," said the young woman with a smile.

Yes, Elizabeth thought, I'm good at that, aren't I.

Mr. Kingsford passed the two and said to Mary, "All right, I'm off upstairs. See that Mrs. Jennings gets off safely." He nodded to Elizabeth and disappeared through an unmarked door, which clicked shut with a dull, clean thud. Not the sound of a door which opened onto a ten-storey flight of stairs, which would take up a voluminous cavity at the side of the building.

Elizabeth bid farewell and walked out, noting that the building was guarded by the same CCTV system on the outside, with cameras on each corner. It was almost a relief to be out of the futuristic setting enclosed in the ordinary-looking stone façade, and on her way home. America was really getting along, she thought to herself. The great country was advancing at breakneck speeds at the expense of the oppressed and underprivileged. She would always be loyal to her home nation. Surely the Soviet Union was better than this.


	5. Chapter 5

The counter-espionage team was closing in on a Russian agent in New York City, an elusive woman by the team-given name of Lily. The archived document and photograph copies had so far been very useful in allowing the team to paint a portrait of Lily's former and present lives. There was a colossal amount of information, and the team was trying to sort the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, so they could pinpoint Lily's current identity and location, and remove her from the game.

They knew that recent leaks about the latest US surveillance satellite could be traced back to an agent in New York, a woman, and they were certain that Lily (whose real name was Ludmilla Sidorov, at least they knew that) was the one. The satellite would search for missile stations and bases in the vast reaches of Siberia – if the Russians knew its path or specifics about its electronics, it could be disabled in a number of ways, and the US had no other reliable, functioning satellite over certain parts of the USSR. The decoy machines would keep them at bay for now, as long as they didn't know which ones were fakes.

Elizabeth ambled around the Glades Security warehouse with Philip at her side. She'd had no choice but to bring him in. There was no way she would be able to fix the complicated explosive devices into the four central rooms and get off the property in under ten minutes on her own.

She never got tired of being with Philip, but not because she felt any particular sort of affection for him. He was just an interesting person to observe, with his various nervous habits, the daily changes in his appearance and careful choice of words when he spoke. Elizabeth noticed these things as almost a second nature now.

Approaching a salesman Elizabeth explained their situation. "We're owners of a scrap yard on the outskirts of town" – there were a few as far as Elizabeth knew – "and are interested in installing CCTV on our grounds. There have been a number of…" she lowered her voice, "you know, incidents. Scrap doesn't sound like it's worth a lot but we pay for it. For all we know people are stealing it and selling it to us two or three times over."

The salesman was sympathetic.

"This is the best we have," he said, indicating a replica of a section of the Amondsen building system. Elizabeth laughed internally. As if any of the scrap yards in town could afford that sort of thing. But it was a perfect lead-in for the questions Elizabeth had.

She stayed and chatted with the man for a while, as Philip walked around and examined the individual parts of the equipment. Elizabeth learned that the tapes took about ten minutes to be changed after each hour of recording for a large network of cameras. She thanked the man, tapped Philip on the shoulder and they wandered around the busy warehouse as if deep in contemplation of the products offered.

It was noisy enough that Elizabeth was comfortable talking in a normal pitch to her husband.

"That means we have ten minutes to put the charges in," she began. "We will set the delay accordingly and make sure the building goes up before the ten minutes are out. If the cameras come back on line while the charges are still standing they'll arouse suspicion and the building may be cleared. We'll have to be careful not to rush and to pause to look at things on the way round. It'll take us about a minute to set up each charge, and at least one minute to walk between rooms. It'll be tight, but we can do it if we take the car and drive out afterwards."

Philip looked at her in a bemused fashion. "Why can't we just walk out the front door?"

"Well firstly because there's no parking on the street and I don't fancy trying to outrun that explosion. Secondly, because it wouldn't make sense to go round that gallery twice because it's boring as bat crap and the woman knows it, and we've got to start by the reception desk." With Philip briefed on her choice, Elizabeth continued. "There's a gas pipeline that runs round the room near to the ceiling, for the heating. We're going to place the charges on the walls next to them. That's right opposite the security cameras, so they'd be noticed straight away when the cameras came back on line."

That had answered Philip's next question, but he still had one more.

"You won't look weird if you go back again?"

"We're going as our friends. We've been referred and Elizabeth's given us such a tempting description of the place we had to check it out when we were in town – that'll explain the backpacks." She smiled. "The girl at the counter will understand."


	6. Chapter 6

Elizabeth and Philip bore the weight of the backpacks as if they were virtually empty – they looked the part of a happy well-travelled couple. Elizabeth had on her blonde wig and Philip some noticeable but non-interesting facial hair, and they made sure to look lovingly into each other's eyes from time to time. The backpacks each contained two explosive devices: 5kg charges of TNT containing a primer fitted with a delay fuse – a different length of time for each one. It was important that all the charges went off more or less simultaneously, as damage to the surrounding buildings would bring unnecessary complications into the matter.

TNT wasn't the most powerful explosive available, but at this short notice it was all the handler had been able to provide, being more stable than the alternatives.

The reason for the destruction of the building had not yet been specified, but following instructions and getting an explanation later was hardly an uncommon phenomenon. Amondsen Telephone Company was obviously a front for an American intelligence operation and important documents were stored in the building, but still Elizabeth didn't see why there was no choice but to blow the damn thing up.

Making their way up the spiral staircase from the car park, Elizabeth and Philip called out a greeting to the young receptionist. Elizabeth thought that manning this dump was quite a waste of a working life, and Philip couldn't help noticing how pretty her eyes were.

Mary looked up from her book and smiled. "Hello, how can I help you?"

Elizabeth grinned. "We're here to see the museum. You were given a high recommendation by our friend, Elizabeth – she came in a few days ago."

Mary refrained from rolling her eyes. "Well, I hope you find it as much of an enjoyment as she did," she said with a slight laugh.

Mary had never seen so many people on the ground floor in a single week before. As her day started at ten and finished at four o'clock, she never saw the workers arriving at nine or coming downstairs at five, for she wasn't particularly willing to hang around at the museum when she had a cosy home and a family to return to.

"Thank you, we've only got a short time in this part of town, but felt we had to come check this place out," Philip said.

As it would turn out, the same willingness of Mary's not to question would work as much in the favour of our Soviet agents as it would the American institution which they were targeting.


	7. Chapter 7

Elizabeth and Philip wandered through the displays before the first door, talking quietly among themselves about trivial things. Elizabeth checked her watch discreetly. Presently, 1:12 came and the red lights on the cameras went off.

Pushing open the first door, on the western side of the square, Elizabeth made appropriate noises of appreciation and led her husband inside. As soon as the door was closed, they immediately went into fluid, rehearsed action, without a word exchanged between them. The first explosive charge came out of Elizabeth's backpack, readily wired up. Climbing onto the display bed, Philip held the device against the wall, where the faint hissing could be heard the loudest, while Elizabeth clamped it in place with the strong adhesive pads they had bought along. The hollowed shape of the charge ensured that energy would be directed into the wall when it was detonated. The pads wouldn't be able to hold the heavy explosives in place for long. But they wouldn't need to.

Elizabeth watched her watch until the second hand hit 45 and lit the fuse.

They emerged from the room chatting animatedly. 50 seconds had elapsed since they'd gone in. It seemed their precautions were taken unnecessarily. Mary, reading, was paying them absolutely no attention.

With the utmost care and patience, Elizabeth and Philip made their way around to the northern face of the gallery with not the slightest hint of urgency showing on their faces. In 65 seconds exactly they were within the second room, and the explosive was taken from Philip's backpack this time. The placement went without a hitch and they were back in the hallway within 40 seconds. It was 1:15.

Somewhere in a sheltered monitoring station, the footage from the Amondsen museum began streaming on a set of screens, as there was a delay of a few minutes between the start of filming and when the images could be recovered and transferred to the computer.

An organised eruption of activity ensued. "Clear the archives" was the overall message, although it was given at times in many layers of code and in varying degrees of urgency and succinctness.

Their cover had been blown. So close to being able to capture Lily, the team could not afford to be set back this much now. Millions of American lives could be at stake in this Cold War, as well as the freedom and way of life which was to them so important to protect, for the sake of all humanity.


	8. Chapter 8

"Someone's coming," Elizabeth whispered to Philip as they made their way round the bend which took them in a southerly direction towards the eastern, third, door. Indeed, someone was approaching from behind them, but they didn't seem to be hurrying or particularly worried. The normal thing to do would be to turn around. Elizabeth turned around.

It was Mr. Kingsford, the businessman from her meeting the other day. She feigned unrecognition. "Good afternoon," she said in a friendly manner.

Mr. Kingsford smiled. "Hello. Welcome to Amondsen! I hope you're enjoying your visit. Have you come far?"

Elizabeth smiled. "We're from interstate – New York actually. We've always wanted to come to Washington DC, and naturally thought we'd get as much done in our day as possible." Mr. Kingsford wasn't as gullible as the young woman at the counter. 1:16. "We're on our way to the other museum down the way, and have a tour booked there at 2. Thought we'd stop here on the way as we have some time and our friend recommended you."

Mr. Kingsford smiled again and wished them a pleasant stay. 1.17. He gave Mary a wave and told her he was heading back upstairs. He'd just had some business across the road.

Mary hadn't noticed him come down earlier, but she was pretty engrossed in her book at the time. She waved back. The visiting couple were now entering the eastern door opposite her desk. Mary laughed to herself. They were getting a move along – probably realised how boring the whole thing was by now.

Elizabeth was trying not to show how panicked the encounter with Mr. Kingsford had been. Not because he was an intimidating man, which he was, despite his friendly airs, but because the remaining fuses were now too long after the delay.

Elizabeth extracted a knife from her pocket and sheared off a section of the third fuse.

"You can't just guess it!" Philip exclaimed.

"We have to. There's no time." Elizabeth was already up on the table, having emptied her backpack of its contents. Philip was up within a flash to assist. He was worried but there was a job to be done, and not one of them could stop the march of time, or the fuses already burning in the two other rooms.

Before 1.18 arrived they were out of the door and walking as briskly as they dared towards the turn that would take them west again, onto their final destination before it was time to leave.

Down the street, a group of plainclothes officers armed to the teeth under their inconspicuous outfits emerged from the underground surveillance facility, and made their way at a fast walk towards number 56. Their colleagues kept them updated on the situation with the fuses – from the cameras it could be seen that there was still some time, maybe five minutes or less, for them to eliminate the perpetrators of the crime while the archives were being cleared upstairs.

As Elizabeth made her way into the final room, her heart was pounding. They hadn't even bothered to take time to look at the displays between the eastern and southern rooms, as they thought the risk of Mary noticing anything amiss was small enough to warrant a pick-up in the speed of their transition. Elizabeth's hands were steady as she took the last device out of Philip's backpack. She was slightly too hurried with cutting the fuse though, and nicked her finger in the process.

"Shit," she swore, quickly stemming the flow of blood as best she could with the tablecloth of the display. It wouldn't matter if they messed up the museum, but it would matter if Mary saw Elizabeth bleeding and stopped them on their way out to get a bandage or something equally as preposterous.

The explosives were up on the wall with the efficiency of only the very best in the field.

As Elizabeth left the room and started making for the reception desk and their route to freedom, she felt scared. Scared for her own life and the future of her children if they were to lose her and Philip. I'm doing this for the motherland, she told herself. My duty and loyalty come first. The Soviet Union will bring an ideology to the world which will make life better for countless millions of people. I need to fight for that.

But as Elizabeth pasted a cheerful smile on her face and thanked Mary for the experience, she still felt scared for all the wrong reasons.

It was 1:20.


	9. Chapter 9 - Resolution

The group of officers had arrived at the door of the museum. Peering down the narrow corridor, they could see nobody in the building besides the receptionist reading at her desk.

The leader said into his radio, "We can't see anyone. Do we go in to search?"

The officers would all obey their orders in an instant, for they were proud to do their bit for America, but every single one of them hoped in that instant that one reply and one reply only would come.

The radio crackled into life. "No, get away from there now. It's too late, there may only be a minute left on the fuses."

The men didn't need to be told twice. Turning on their heels, they ran back down the street towards their safe shelter. One of the group turned around at the last moment, opened the door and bellowed out to Mary, "Get out of the building! It's going to blow up!"

Mary looked up in fright and looked around her, seemingly paralysed with shock, but something suddenly spurred her into action and she grabbed her handbag, sprinting along the narrow oak-floored walkway, taking the bend to the north hard. The man at the door waited for her, and they fled side by side towards safety. Mary was a surprisingly fast runner, or maybe it was just the adrenaline.

Elizabeth and Philip were in their car by now. The car was idling in front of the roller door of the car park, which inched upwards at an excruciatingly slow speed. It was 1:21 plus 30 seconds. Mental streams of sweat were flowing down both their faces, but their outward countenance was calm. 35 seconds.

Suddenly, with the door barely up high enough for their car to fit underneath, the motor whined to a halt.

"What's going on?" asked Elizabeth, mostly to keep herself calm. She didn't expect Philip to know either.

The roller door began to reverse its upwards progression.

Philip put the car into reverse and stepped hard on the accelerator. The tyres spun as he in turn plunged the vehicle into forward gear, ramming it into the descending door, which peeled away from its guides at the side of the entrance, shattering the car's windscreen in the process. 45 seconds.

Speeding out into the street, Philip and Elizabeth were aware that they were being tailed. They turned into the busy street at the T-junction closest the museum and weaved in and out between other cars, hoping they'd managed to throw their follower.

Mary was pulled by the officer into the underground surveillance room, which also sufficed as a shelter, and the door was bolted fast behind them. Mary pulled out her cell phone, it was the first time she'd had a chance to do so. She had to warn Mr. Kingsford and the other workers upstairs. She didn't know if there was still time for them to get out, but she would beat herself up forever if she didn't try now. Mr. Kingsford had given her his cell phone number for emergencies. If this wasn't an emergency, Mary didn't know what was.

The FBI helicopter had landed on the roof of number 56 – the crucial documents had to be removed from the building via the roof, for there was no other way into the upper floors of the Amondsen building. There was not a person inside the building – the entire sorting, categorising, viewing and retrieval process was done remotely with machines, military creations far ahead of the technology of the time. Boxes were beginning to be loaded onto the chopper when the call came through on the radio. "The building will blow in 30 seconds or less. Get out of there now!"

Mary got through to Mr. Kingsford. "You have to get out of the building!" she cried as soon as he picked up. "It's going to blow up!" At that second, a huge boom sounded and resonated up and down the street as the Amondsen building went up. Mary could feel the vibration even through the thick walls of the shelter, and she couldn't stop her hands from shaking.

The twenty or so men who were on the roof grabbed what they could, a minuscule proportion of all the intelligence contained within the building, clambered onto the helicopter, which lifted off as soon as everyone was on board. Veering sharply away from the building as soon as it was airborne, the machine took the blast of the explosion hard, but stayed aloft.

As soon as the fuses had burnt through in the ground floor museum, they had ignited the shock-sensitive primer, which in turn detonated the less sensitive secondary charge, the TNT. The damage done by the explosives was superficial, bringing to ruin only the walls and contents of the ground floor. The foundations and supports of the building stood strong. But once the gas was caught by the shock wave, number 56 didn't stand a chance. The gas pipework ran throughout the height of the building, and the entire lot went up in a colossal explosion which reduced the huge structure to a smoking pile of rubble in seconds.

Then Mr. Kingsford's voice came through on Mary's cell. "What's happened?!" he said in shock, obviously alive and having no clue the building he was supposedly in had been demolished. Mary stared at the phone in horror. What was the meaning of this? Who was she really working for? Had the past two years been a lie? The questions came tumbling out one after another, but they came too late.

Elizabeth and Philip had thrown their follower, but they were getting a lot of curious looks from other drivers who had seen the state of their windscreen. They were far away from a place they could change their car for a more discreet one. There was no choice but to ditch it. They did this is a deserted narrow laneway, peeling off their disguises and waiting a few minutes in a deserted doorway before walking out calmly onto the street, like any ordinary couple, out for an afternoon stroll.

They would judge if their situation was safe. If not, Moscow would pull them out or set up a temporary safe house. They had faith that their superiors would do that.

Ten years' of work by the American intelligence community was turned into ashes in the blink of an eye. Ludmilla would survive to pass on the last crucial blueprints to her Soviet handlers, enabling them to send a missile to intercept the American satellite, blowing it to smithereens high up in space, protecting the locations of countless missile stations in Soviet territory. There was no doubt the Americans would rebuild and come back more ferocious than ever – the country had a resilience and an impeccable resourcefulness which had to be respected and even admired, even if it worked for all the wrong causes. But the Soviets had bought themselves a few years, and that would bring untold benefits.


End file.
